


The Author and the Spy

by ZeroToWeirdo



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Meet-Cute, MeetCute, Multi, Roxy lives, and kingsman 2 fucked up, because im not a monster, everyone lives except the bad guys, merlin lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 16:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14524170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeroToWeirdo/pseuds/ZeroToWeirdo
Summary: One of them is an Author with a little too much knowledge on the comings and goings of certain Kingsmen. The other is the Kingsman in question.





	The Author and the Spy

Merlin wasn't trying to make light of the situation by any means, he wasn't saying that it wasn't urgent. He'd have been a fool to do so, after Harry had managed to sniff out Agent Whiskey's betrayal fresh out of a memory coma before either Roxy  or Merlin had. So he could definitely feel the urgency rolling off of Harry and the stress in his face, and he took that very seriously. Very, very seriously. 

 

But it was 2 in the morning, his body still hurt, he was jet-lagged from the flight back to England and he couldn't quite grasp how the Kindle in Harry's hand had anything urgent to offer him, nor what this Unwin character had to do with it. They had just defeated the world's deadliest drug cartel. What had Amazon's book writers done to top that? 

"Are you even listening to me?" Harry demanded, his face darkening when he noted Merlin's glazed looking eyes.

"To be honest, no, Harry. You've lost me at volume 2, the return of the Red Gloved Mafioso." Merlin grumbled. 

Harry didn't look pleased. Merlin felt a little ruffled by that.

"Pardon if I'm off my game, I'm a little sore." He stated, rolling his shoulder with an unnecessary groan.

Harry's shoulders relaxed a mite.

"I was nearly blown to pieces recently."

Harry rolled his eyes and let his arm, which had been pushing the Kindle towards Merlin demandingly, drop to his side.

"In your place." 

Harry groaned and sat down opposite Merlin, finally taking a healthy  gulp of the tea Merlin had offered him before his tirade had begun.

"Start from the beginning, Harry. What has this Unwin man done?"

"They've been spying on Kingsman for the past 5 years or so." Now that had Merlin's attention. He sat up straighter and nodded, indicating his full attention to what Harry was going to say next.

"It started with the first book, Order of the King. He was talking about a sort of government agency that took in 'apprentices' and trained them to become agents for the Crown, and he called them the Order of the King. Halfway through the first book he started mentioning...things that happened in current affairs. Merlin..." He breathed deeply before whispering "he said there had been a foiled tube bombing on Guy Fawkes day of 2011, and that it had been stopped by three agents of the Order, with the help of a cab driver named Edward."

Merlin sat up in shock. "That is....incredibly accurate." He mumbled.

Eddie (short for Edgar not Edward, but it was close enough) had been a normal cab driver who had tipped them off on the possible clandestine terrorist attack waiting to happen. He'd helped them find the exact spot and had nearly died aiding them when crossfire had happened. He'd retired to the countryside on the Kingsman dime and Merlin had modeled the artificial cab driver they had today after him, naming it Eddie.

"Go on."

"They wrote about a the attack against a warlord in South Sudan who had been 'disposed' in 2012, 'evil genius' creating a biological bomb in the middle of Hampshire that same year, a nuclear warhead intercepted in South America with the help of Falkland Island agents we had no were still  existent  in 2014."

"The kidnapping of the royal family in 2015?"

"They were off by a couple of members, but yes."

"The  assassination  attempt on the pope?"

"Yes."

"Human trafficking ring through Europe?"

"Yes."

"And  this red gloved mafioso?"

"Angus. He was wearing red gloves on the day it all went down.  Everything  of note, Merlin. Right down to Valentine. They said …they said we were betrayed by our leader...that we'd won by the skin of our teeth."

"Jesus Christ, Harry."

"They even mentioned Margaret Thatcher in the origin story of Henry Hathaway."

"Henry Ha-"

"Not now. There's this."  He said, holding the Kindle out in front of Merlin.

Merlin cleared his throat and read the blurb aloud. 

" Ehem . _'_ _After two year's absence, Unwin is back with a spectacular continuation of the Order of the King series. Hathaway, back from the grave, isn't done shaking figurative dirt from his lapels before he's thrust once more into a battle to save the world from the clutches of a self-righteous villain. While he has barely recovered from the close encounter with Valentine and as tragedy strikes the Order, Hathaway is possibly more alone than ever. _

_ Will he and Florence, with the aid of Agent 24, be able to save the world on their own? Will their newfound American counterparts come to their aid, or prove to be their downfall? More in the next Order of the King: The Golden Knight_ _.'_ ...Bloody hell, Harry, how long have you know about this?" Merlin asked, tossing the Kindle aside and pulling up his own tab from the table, tapping away industriously.

"Before Valentine? Three years, give or take. I thought it was coincidence, things  gleaned  from the news, guesses maybe. I'm not so sure anymore. They went on hiatus for about as long as I was... indisposed . Before you and  Roxy  found me. And now, I come back to this announcement. It's only been a week." 

"They're just about as prolific at writing about the end of the world as you are at saving the it, it seems. We're tracking them down." 

"Yes."

"Wasn't a question, Harry, I'm zeroing in on their location now. Are you ready?"

"Time to meet this oracle." Harry stood and approached the door, shrugging his coat on as he did so.

"Go get ' em , Hathaway." 

"With pleasure, Agent 24."

"Wait, I'm a number?"

"You certainly weren't Florence,  _Seamus who hasn't been called by his real name in half a decade_. "

"...valid point. Be gone, I'll be in your ear."

***

Eggsy  was lit. Not by drugs, of course. Hadn't touched so much as  paracetamol  after he'd nearly died a week or two ago. Nothing sobers you up like a near death experience, though he was sort of glad it had gotten him off his ass to write again. 

In the wake of Valentine's destruction, he'd lost all interest in writing, finishing off his series by sheer will with the trauma of breaking Jamal's arm and nearly killing Jamal entirely looming over him like a  Damocles  sword. He'd gotten a burst of inspiration when everything had started going down, his furious typing and writing fueled by his insomnia which stemmed from his fear of death as those tendrils spread along his arms and hands.  

For the first time since Valentine, he'd gone out and gotten properly sloshed with the boys, drinking at the pub where they'd all nearly killed each other. It had been therapeutic, reading his Kindle contact's excited email  about the Order of the King returning to active updates. New memories to replace the old, seeing Jamal and Ryan singing off key (and off lyrics, where they even singing the same song?) while  Liam and Brandon  were leaning on each other much closer than they had before the Poppy apocalypse. He was happy.

And now he was drunk.

He stumbled through his dark living room, singing Dua Lipa for no particular reason than to see if he could still count while  inebriated  (he couldn’t) when he heard a click. The room was suddenly awash with light from his table lamp, a stranger sitting on his arm chair, just a coffee table away from him.

An incredibly well-dressed stranger. With a fucking eye patch. And an umbrella twirling in his hand, the tip digging into  Eggsy's  carpet. Eggsy spun around quickly, looking for some kind of camera, maybe Ryan hiding  shitily  behind a curtain or  summat . Nothing but darkness. He turned back to the stranger.

 

He looked unamused. Well shit, now  Eggsy  felt like he'd missed something. He should probably break the silence. Intruder or not, awkward silences were the devil.

"Hey, handsome." 

Un-amusement etching the man's features hit new levels. Well. it couldn't really get any worse and as far as Eggsy was concerned, the ice had been broken, so he barreled on.

"I'd ask if you came here often, but that seems unlikely, seeing as I've never seen you before and this is my actual home...you're standing up. Okay, yes, hello, hi, I'm so sorry-"  Eggsy  stammered as the figure approached him, backing him till his knees hit the edge of his sofa. Before he could regain his balance, he felt himself fall to a sit.

"Have a seat, Mr. Unwin." The stranger said belatedly, rounding the couch.  Eggsy  could feel his eyes on him, causing  Eggsy's  hair to stand on end on his nape. Like being eyed down by a feline predator.

"Y-yeah, well...glad you know my name, not creepy at all, and you're in my house, which is nice, but do I know who you are?"

"We're here to find that out." The voice said, sounding a little far off.  Eggsy  peaked over his  shoulder  to see the man exiting his room (when had he gone in?!) carrying his laptop.

"Excuse me, sir, if you don't mind, you look incredibly put together and I'm just a full time barista. Please don’t steal from me."  Eggsy  whined quickly, wondering if he could fight in the condition he was in.

"My  colleague  has been through your laptop. She's found nothing out of the ordinary. Another is sifting through everything you've done on and offline since you were born. If there is a confession to make, now is the time. Where do you get your information from? Who is your source?"

"My source? Of...what?"  Eggsy  asked, looking around frantically for a weapon, only now  realizing  the gravity of the situation. This man looked ready to fight, and he didn't have a noticeable weapon but that never really stopped a fighter.  Eggsy  had pillows and the dulled wits of a man fresh from the bar.

"Information, Unwin. The Order of the King." 

"What? W-what, this is about my books? Oh my god...are you a crazy fan? Are you going to kill me and wear my skin? Mount my head in your bathroom?"

That somehow made the man look even angrier, pulling his glasses off with a growl, nearly knocking his eyepatch off in the process. 

"Now, you see...your knack of saying  precisely  the right thing about things you should know nothing about has long since abandoned coincidence. Who is your source?" He leaned forward now, looking menacing and entirely prepared to kill. 

 

It wasn't a look Eggsy had seen since Valentine's day. He was starting to freak out. "I don't have a source!"  Eggsy  shouted back, feeling his chest spasm in a gasp as the man stood up and loomed over him, umbrella in hand.

"Then how do you write your books? How do you frame everything around the Kings- the Order of the King? Margaret Thatcher, Angus, the Pope, the royal family,  Valentine , Poppy, fucking Guy Fawkes day. Eddie in the cab."

"Eddie?!"  Eggsy  screeched, feeling his fight-flight instincts warring within him. "Eddie the cabbie? Oh my fucking God, is this because I didn't credit _Eddie_? Oh my God, he-he said he'd helped stop Guy Fawkes day 2.0 with fucking Bond right before he left for the country, I thought he was telling fish tales. He hasn't told me anything about you or whatever it is you think I know! I just write books for extra cash! I haven't spoken to Eddie since, I swear! I just...he said he was with a spy, so I wrote my own twist on a spy group and started adding random things that caught my attention in the news to their resume. Small things that could have become something else, like the gas leak article that came out after Eddie's story. The stopped train in Heathrow being about service issues when people said they'd seen fights between a couple of Brits and a few Russians, so I made it about human trafficking. Bit by bit, it became a series over time, nothing more!"

The man was quiet for a moment, before slipping his glasses on. "Did you get that?" He asked no one in particular. "Nothing at all?" He asked suddenly, before looking at  Eggsy  again. "You're clean." 

"What the fuck?" Was Eggsy's only response, burying  his face in his hands. "Tell Eddie I'll give him credit if he wants it, he doesn't have to scare me half to death."

"We're not here because of Eddie. And we're not done here." 

"Jesus."  Eggsy  whined, leaning back against the couch, hands still pressed to his eyes as though 'out of sight out of mind' could apply to an intruder. "Please, I don't know what you want from me."

"Valentine. You said the leader of the Order was lost. Why did you write this?" The man asked. Something in his voice, an earnestness that didn't feel hostile, made  Eggsy  put his hands down and take a good look at him. He looked confused, a little curious, but not murderous, not lethal. Not  anymore . 

"It just made sense. Everyone's leader was missing. Everything had gone to shit, and we'd nearly lost it all. It had come so close to not being stopped. The world  tore  itself apart. I almost killed my mate. I was stuck in the hospital feeling like a fucking traitor and I'd already started writing about the missing world leaders, I wrapped up the series with the Order eating itself from the inside out. I killed off Hathaway. I as good as retired. I didn't want to write anymore."   Eggsy  explained. 

"And...the return of Hathaway? In this new book." 

"I was basically on my deathbed. I wanted to write a happy ending I didn't see coming for myself into the Poppy narrative. Where good beats evil, one last time. A world where I survived. I wanted to live. I wanted a hero, and the only hero I knew was Hathaway. So I wrote him back in within the 2 days I was holed up in my room. Then the antidote came, and I had a story on my hands that I thought I might as well publish."

The man sighed  defeatedly  and sat on the coffee table, just a few inches from  Eggsy . If this was a deranged fan, he was well and truly lost in this act, because he looked all sorts of resigned.

"Not that I don't love your company...but does this mean you won't bother me again?"  Eggsy  asked nervously. The man rolled his eyes (eye, really) and took his glasses off once more. "Merlin, you're sure?" He asked.  Eggsy  looked around for another person but saw no one. Seeing  Eggsy's  distress, a sort of playful smile bloomed on the man's face. He held the glasses out to  Eggsy . Was this a trick?

Whatever, he slowly put them on and had the shock of his life. Like floating blue holograms, he could see a  man and a woman standing about his living room, tapping away at tabs and talking over each other

"I've never seen a more spectacularly unspectacular person before in my life." The Scotsman said in awe.

"Honestly Harry, how did you even end up on this side of the Kindle? Are you that arrogant, looking for spy fics that resemble you? That being said, this is eerily accurate and I am incredibly into lesbian Florence. I'm bi myself, but she deserves this. She deserves  Tilde . I want a Tilde . Why did we not find a Tilde for me while fighting Valentine, Merlin?" 

"He's underwhelming in all aspects, how on earth did he manage to Sherlock his way into figuring out the nuclear warhead situation in 2015? I can't wrap my head around it. And he guessed 'human trafficking' from a stopped train and fighting Russians?"

"How the HELL am I able to hear these people?"  Eggsy  demanded.  That shut them both up for a moment before Merlin shrugged and said "Well, quite simple. We use the arms of the glasses to send vibrations and signals directly into your head. You might have seen a 'This Now' video about it. It is old technology. Much like Harry here, who needs a mental upgrade if he thought passing my specially-made glasses to a civilian was a good idea." 

"We were wrongfully interrogating him, Merlin, don’t act high and mighty now. And there's nothing left of us to betray. Glasses, earwigs and yanks included, we've got nearly nothing."

Merlin  harrumphed  but seemed to  acquiesce . 

"Welcome into the loop, boy. You're staring at the skeletal remains of the Kings- err...the Order. Now, how did you manage to write up Florence and Agent 24 from thin air? I'm sorry, but I need to know." 

"I told you it was Bond- ish . A tech wiz was necessary. As for Florence, it seemed stupid to not have a female spy. Most spies during the wars were women and children. They could get the most information out of people with the least collateral damage, getting into places men couldn't dream of. Jesus, I can't believe I'm talking to spies."  Eggsy  was grinning now, staring wide eyed at Harry in wonder. 

Harry...that was so much like Henry. Harry was the name Eddie had  mentioned  in his story.

"You were there...you were with Eddie."  Eggsy  said in awe.  Harry smiled and nodded. "You're Henry Hathaway. Oh my god...you're my hero!"  Eggsy blushed  imperceptibly, embarrassed  at his gushing (the two incorporeal laughing people made that hard) but powering through it as some puzzle pieces started to fit.

"You asked why I brought him back. You were gone yourself, weren't you...was that how you lost your eye?" He asked nervously. 

"Shot out by Valentine in a church carpark in Kentucky." Harry could already see the sparkles in  Eggsy's  eyes as he spoke.

" Eggsy...we're very sorry for interrupting your night."

"We?" 'Florence' snorted, receiving an elbow jab from Merlin. 

"I will leave you to your devices."

"Please tell me the Order is still out there?" Eggsy demanded. "Whatever you lot are calling it.  Kingspeople  or Kingsmen or whatever." ( "Jesus Fuck" Merlin cussed under his breath)

 

Harry looked uncertain.  Eggsy  just shrugged, looking sheepish. "I want to know there are still heroes out there...saving the day." 

Harry smiled a little, before holding his hand out, clearly waiting for the glasses to be handed back to him. He took them off slowly and placed them in Harry's hand, surprised when Harry's other hand grabbed him by the wrist and turned his hand palm-up. He placed a card in  Eggsy's  palm, with a K symbol on it and a set of numbers.

"Call that number if you're ever in need of help." Harry said, putting the glasses back on with grace that was really  unnecessary  for such a menial task. 

Eggsy  panicked as he saw Harry turning to leave. He needed to  say  something witty, an actual spy and his literal hero was leaving his house with Florence and Agent 24 in his ear . "Till we meet again?" Was all he managed to as i n a rush, standing up and looked at the man earnestly.

Harry stared back at him for a good while, as though weighing his answer. Or maybe those two were nattering in his ear, which seemed more likely considering the smile that seemed to fight its way onto his face against his best efforts.  "Goodbye, Eggsy." He said, taking leave.

Eggsy grinned, reading between the lines as he usually did.

"Yeah, see you soon Harry!"

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt by Ponddipper: Eggsy writes spy fic for kindle as it's a easy way to make a few quid while looking after Daisy. Harry is a real spy and they meet by accident, maybe Harry got beat up and Eggsy finds him before Merlin can get a cab to him? Eggsy takes Harry home to clean up and Harry finds out Eggsy is the mysterious writer who keeps guessing all of Kingsman secrets?
> 
> I didn't fulfill it completely... My bad. No beat up/takes Harry home thing. It steered itself out of my hands here.


End file.
